Mr. and Mrs. Jha have come into a sum of money that will allow them to move to a wealthy community, leaving behind the long-time friends of their humble Delhi apartment complex. But keeping up with the Chopras proves more difficult than expected: while Mr. Jha is eager to fit in (making extravagant purchases at every turn), Mrs. Jha is less enthusiastic. This debut, an engaging comedy of manners, gently skewers India's upwardly mobile middle classes while emphasizing the importance of family bonds.

Less than a year after their breakup, midlist novelist Arthur Less is invited to his ex-boyfriend's wedding. Not wanting to go but lacking (so far) a compelling reason to RSVP his regrets, he accepts every other invitation that comes his way, traveling to New York, Mexico, Morocco, and other far-flung destinations. In his efforts to run away from facing the fact that he has irrevocably lost the love of his life, however, he finds other reasons to live -- though of course he's got to endure some comically wrong turns first. With a surprising narrator (you'll find out at the end who) and flawed but sympathetic characters, Less is a poignant meditation on the universal search for love and happiness.

As the title suggests, this compelling, brooding debut novel will appeal to fans of modern Westerns, with its themes of justice, vengeance, and rivalry...as well as plenty of horsemanship. Set in modern-day Marin, in northern California, it opens as Silas Van Loy has killed his brother, saddled up his horse, and begun making his escape. The relationship between the two brothers -- antagonistic, resentful, and competitive -- unfolds through flashbacks as Silas flees, with his sister-in-law in hot pursuit, intent on revenge.

A baker's apprentice in Normandy endures shame and anger as her kind mentor is targeted and arrested for his Jewish heritage, a violation that compels the young woman to engage in discreet resistance activities, baking contraband loaves of bread for the hungry using surplus ingredients taken from occupying forces.

Rushing to the deathbed of his grandmother, Nicholas Young encounters a massive clan eager to claim a share of the family fortune, win the hearts of loved ones, destroy each other's reputations and outmaneuver professional rivals.

"As the old ways of the nineteenth century fade, Out of the Darkness tells a story that touches on the themes and issues America will face in the new century that looms ahead. It is a story of technology and its place in society. It is a story of violence, a doctor's responsibility to his patient, and a lawyer's responsibility to his client. It is a story of forbidden love, and a story of a timid, terrified young woman's finding her courage. It questions humankind's ability and willingness to be a contributor in the quality and course of its own evolution. Ultimately, Out of the Darkness takes a look at what sort of people will populate a new age, and what sort of people will, inevitably, be left behind."

"Fred and Virginia, two expats living in Istanbul and working at the university, come home one night to find their apartment occupied by a family of Greeks. Barred by a quirk of Turkish law from evicting them, Fred comes to a strange kind of understanding with their new squatters; he's in Istanbul because the pay is good, and with the property in limbo he can ignore the rent, not to mention the paper-writing racket he starts with the Greek patriarch, selling term papers to his own university students. Between get-rich schemes and run-ins with Kurdish separatists, Fred watches the transformation of his neighborhood from a place with a kind of sad romance to a generic megalopolis, gobbled up by greedy developers and the city's rapacious elite. Lauded by T.C. Boyle as "tight and imaginative," Not Constantinope is the story of a city in transition and the uncertainty of life in a foreign country."

"In frontier historical novel River with No Bridge, Nora Flanagan, at age eighteen, leaves Boston in 1882 to marry a miner in Butte, Montana. She anticipates achieving the respectability and security denied her as a tinker's daughter in Ireland. Instead,she experiences tragedy, disgrace, and redemption. Three men love her: her husband who dies in a mine explosion; the secretive gambler who abandons her, leaving her pregnant; and half-Chinese Jim Li who becomes her life partner despite prejudice against them. In the course of her life, Nora survives her daughter's death, relinquishes her son, homesteads in the wilderness, and raises a Blackfeet girl. She learns to cherish the beauty and healing power of nature surrounding the North Fork of the Flathead River. "

After the Supreme Being ruling all humankind decides to retire, the task is turned over to the Venturi brothers, who do away with good and evil, replacing it with a system based on sound economic principles, displeasing the old gods.

Overcome by regrets after decades in a loveless and unhappy marriage, Marianne attempts suicide and is abandoned by her husband before finding herself in picturesque Brittany, where she finds loving new friends who encourage her to develop her talents for her own pleasure.